Typical Tuesday

We thought for this month's post we'd talk about our everyday life and give you a glimpse of what the typical day in the life of the Lapp family looks like.

We live in a 16 story building on the 11th floor.  We have a beautiful view of Danshui from the balcony outside our living room.  We can see mountains in the background and a view of the Danshui River leading into the ocean.  At least I think it is beautiful. I have come to appreciate concrete buildings and city lights. :)

For Keith on a typical Tuesday, he is working in our Biblical Studies Department office most of the day. He is preparing teachings, organizing for the next Titus Project program that runs in February, or having a meeting with someone. For lunch, he usually is in a meeting.  Then in the evening, one of us goes to our Rock coffee bar for ministry from 7:00 - 11:00pm.

This is some of the youth group that Keith often teaches.  We had them over for chili one night.

For Magan, Tuesdays involve taking care of the kids and cleaning the house with an occasional visitor coming over for coffee and discipleship. Sometimes she can also squeeze in teaching preparation as well.  Of course that is Magan's typical day, every day. :)  She stays very busy and as with most moms, is pretty tired by the time Keith gets home.

Elliot's Tuesday looks pretty much the same everyday.  He stays entertained with cars, trucks, trains, rescue vehicles, and dinosaurs.  He doesn't sit still very often unless it's the best part of the movie he's watching.

Favorite past-time

Ezra's typical Tuesday is very similar to Elliot's, except he cries a lot more and doesn't like to sit by himself very much.  He looks up to his brother a lot and loves to sit and watch whatever Elliot is doing.  He is teething and drools alot.

Making turkey for our YWAM feast. 6 months old  (don't worry Ezra was safe on the table)

The following photos were taken of our family when Ezra was 3 months old.

A garden area in our complex

Our living room

The playground in our apartment complex

The boys playing on our bed

In Ezra's room

Went on a little trip

In the last post we said that we would tell you about the last Titus project that finished here in April.  Also, we want to tell you about the little trip we just took.

Titus Project 2013
First we will share about this past Titus. We sent out 7 teams and each team came back with some amazing stories of how God used their teaching.  There were stories of people getting excited about studying the Bible, stories of locals feeling encouraged to continue striving for what God has called them to. There were even stories of restoration.  One story, in particular, happened on the team that went to Japan.  A member on the team was able, through her teaching, to affirm a member of the congregation that she was not cursed by God.  She had misunderstood a teaching by the pastor's wife and therefore held bitterness for many years. The pastor's wife didn't even know.  This woman became honest with her feelings, and they were able to reconcile as well as bring the truth to light...that this woman was not cursed by God.  She is now free from this lie!  It just shows how God's word is life changing when we listen to the Holy Spirit and apply the truths of the Bible.

Also, not only was the Word of God being taught, but there was a team in the Philippines that literally saved the life of a baby.  The team had hiked into a village to teach and discovered an abandoned newborn baby.  There was an older couple in the church that was willing to take it.  The baby was very hungry, and so some team members hiked back to a larger town to buy it formula and bottles.  What an amazing story of God's provision!

Trip in South East Asia

Magan teaching in cultural attire

Public transportation

From August 15- September 9, our family, along with two other girls, traveled to a country in SE Asia to run the Titus Project training for a ministry called Shan Project.  The Shan are an unreached people group located in Myanmar, Laos, Southern China, and Thailand.  If you would like to know more information about Shan Project here is their website:
http://www.shanproject.org/shanproject.org/Home.html 

This was an amazing opportunity to train local people that will go back to their churches and teach God's Word in a very dark and oppressed place.  Our participants were so excited for the training and excited to see how God would use them in the future in their home country.

Family

Elliot was so ready to go home that he forgot his pants

Chilling in my travel bath tub

In family news, the boys are doing really well.  Traveling was not easy for our family as we expected. However, God kept us safe and overall it was a really great time.  Elliot is slowly adjusting to not having all of our attention all the time :).  He is still a little sensitive, but he is slowly adjusting to being a big brother. Ezra is doing well.  The first three months were difficult, because he was not eating well.  He is doing much better now and gaining weight steadily.  He had his 4 month checkup yesterday and he is healthy and strong.  Today he rolled over for the first time.

New life, new wheels, new opportunities, new, new, new

We have been waiting (and procrastinating) to update this blog until we could announce the birth of Charles Ezra Lapp!!  Magan did amazing and her labor was actually really quick.  Whenever we tell her labor story to other mothers they just can't believe how incredible it was, we really praise God for that. One thing is for sure though.  Magan is very glad to not be pregnant anymore.  She really doesn't enjoy that :).  Ezra is doing well.  He is 2 weeks old now and slowly gaining weight.  We really love our two boys.  Elliot wasn't so sure about Ezra at first, but is slowly warming up to him.  The first few days were rough for Elliot because we were in the hospital and he didn't understand what was going on.  However, we have been very blessed to have Magan's mom with us to help with this transition.

In other news, we just realized we never announced that we just got a car!  This has been very exciting for us and has made getting around Taipei a little easier with a family.  Although, finding a parking spot in the city can be difficult, the conveniences far out-weigh the minor inconveniences.  We really want to thank everyone that gave to help us get our first car.  It is a '99 Toyota Tercel.

Ministry Plans - Current and Upcoming

In Current news, Keith is teaching in Taipei City in a youth bible study.  They range from 12 or 13 to 22 years old.  It is a really fun group and most of them are involved in their church in some form or another.  In addition to this, we still have a non-believer Bible study in our home and we are still teaching English at the Rock Coffee Bar.

In August we are going to a country in SE Asia to run a Titus Program for some church planters. We are excited about this opportunity and will talk about this in  upcoming posts.

Recently, we were asked if we would be interested in leading the 2014 February Titus Project in Taiwan.  We prayed about it and felt like this was something we were supposed to do.  We feel like this is a big task, but we believe that God is much bigger than our shortcomings.  Our leaders,  Michael and Amy (Amy is the founder of Titus Project) really have everything so organized that stepping into this role should be a little easier.  Also, they are here to give advice, share their experiences, and train us as leaders.  We feel very blessed to learn from them.

In next month's blog we will share about the Titus Project program that recently finished.  We sent out 7 Bible teaching teams to various countries and saw God do some amazing things in people's lives.

Recent News

On our trip in Fulong

Well, we have been up to a lot since our last post.  In December, we had some time off so we went on a little trip as a family to another part of the island to get some rest before Titus Project started. During the month of January, the two of us staffed Titus Project here in Taiwan.  It was a great school and we sent out 7 teams to different locations around the world.  They are all on outreach right now teaching God's word in these locations. Our team has 5 people (Keith, Magan, Elliot, and two single guys).  Our plans were to spend the month of February in Japan and the month of March in Taiwan teaching in several churches.

While in Japan we were going to be in Okinawa and Osaka.  Our team arrived in Okinawa on the evening of January 27.  We both taught on the 28th.  Magan started out our time by teaching a Bible Overview seminar to the YWAM staff for some staff training.  Keith spoke that evening at the YWAM community base meeting.  He spoke on the importance of evangelism.  Japan is in great need of the gospel.



(Picture above is our outreach team, picture right is us leaving Japan to come to Arkansas)

The next day, Magan took the team to a church to teach an Inductive Bible Study seminar.  One of our team members was teaching through Galatians 1.  During the seminar, Keith was at a nearby park playing with Elliot.  While at the park, he received some shocking news that Magan's father had passed away suddenly due to a heart attack.  Keith then went to the seminar to tell Magan, and we went to talk to her family.  The next day we headed back to Taiwan. Then the following day we flew from Taiwan to Arkansas for the funeral.  We will be here in Arkansas until March 4rth, and then we will head back to Taiwan to join our team and finish the Taiwan portion of the outreach.

These last couple months have been up and down emotionally. We had some much needed rest in December and then started a very busy season with Titus Project.  Since our plans changed so suddenly, we are now spending as much time with Magan's mother as we can and helping with the legal and financial processes that she must go through.  We appreciate your prayers as we continue to deal with the loss of a great father.  Also prayer is appreciated for Magan's mother, since they were married for 41 years and this is a big adjustment and shock for her.

Aki

I wanted to share a short testimony of a man that we met in our 2 1/2 days in  Japan.  His name is Aki and we stayed in his home while we were in Okinawa.  After Keith spoke in their community meeting on evangelism, that night while in his home, he shared with Keith how much he loves sharing Jesus with people.  He shared that he was in prison for 10 years and while he was in prison, people were coming in and sharing about Jesus.  He said at first he didn't want anything to do with Jesus, but over time God started to soften his heart.  Mid-way through his sentence, he became a believer, and as soon as he got out of prison, he got baptized.  After he got baptized he married the woman that led him to the Lord! :) They did YWAM's discipleship training school and he joined staff to continue sharing the gospel.  I love hearing testimonies like his because often people with the roughest backgrounds understand and demonstrate to others the power of God's grace like other people will never be able to do.  Sometimes it is hard for us, coming from church backgrounds to truly understand God's saving grace like Aki.  We are thankful to have met him and we can learn a lot from his heart for evangelism.  He truly shares with everyone he meets, because he knows the freedom God has given him and wants everyone to experience it.